Shanghai (ZXZC)- Beijing will strive to add 37 hydrogen-refueling stations and deploy over 10,000 fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) by 2025, according to an implementation plan the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology issued on April 7 to solicit public opinions. 

BAIC Motor's fuel cell-powered car; photo credit: SinoHytec

Based on the plan, Beijing has set specific goals for the development of local hydrogen energy industry. By 2025, the megacity aims to foster 10 to 15 leading companies with global influence for hydrogen energy industrial chain, construct an industrial cluster about core parts and facility manufacturing of hydrogen industry, and build 3 to 4 world-class platforms for R&D and innovation of hydrogen business. Under the plan, the scale of the hydrogen industrial chain in the Beijing-Tianjin- Hebei region is expected to surpass 100 billion yuan ($15.289 billion) and carbon emissions would be reduced by 2 million tons by that time.

As to the short-term goals, Beijing is ambitious to increase the number of hydrogen-refueling stations to 37 and complete the promotion of 3,000 FCVs by 2023. Meanwhile, the scale of hydrogen energy industry in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region should exceed 50 billion yuan ($7.645 billion) and carbon emissions should be decreased by 1 million tons.

Moreover, Beijing plans to promote the demonstration of the distributed power supply/cogeneration in such areas as business districts, data centers and hospitals, and make efforts to achieve breakthroughs in cutting-edge technologies such as green ammonia and liquid hydrogen, and core technologies related to hydrogen energy industry like proton exchange membrane.

By the end of 2020, there had been around 150 enterprises and organizations related to hydrogen industry in Beijing, of which 60 and 76 are dedicated to hydrogen energy supply and fuel cells respectively, and 13 work on both, according to the plan. The total production value of Beijing’s hydrogen energy industry in 2020 was estimated to be about 3 billion yuan ($458.681 million).